Applying a Custom Filter in an Open File Dialog

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What I’m going to cover now is a pretty minor feature of Windows. I would of skipped this article, but I encountered a few people that never heard of this trick. I’ve personally found it useful in scenarios where I was working with custom file extensions… for example, I knew that a particular file with the uncommon extension “.def” could be opened in Microsoft Access.  The file extension “.def” is not typically associated with Microsoft Access, but I knew it was a valid file. To explain how the feature works, consider your typical, everyday “Open File” dialog: In this example, the dialog wants you to select a “.torrent” file by default. Because this is the active filter, you only see … Read more

Visualizing Disk Usage With Treemaps

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Have you ever been in a situation where you’re not sure why your hard drive is as full as it is, and you wonder what exactly what is taking up the most space? I’m pretty sure most computer users have encountered this before. What I used to do when I hit this problem was look around for big folders on my drive. This ultimately works, but it takes some searching to find the problematic folders – and you’re likely to miss some stuff. Determined to find a better approach, I looked around for an application that could help me, and eventually found one called WinDirStat that utilized a method called treemapping to help users visualize their disk usage. I tried … Read more

Steam Backup Tool: There Is Not Enough Free Disk Space to Run Steam.

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When I first tried Steam’s Backup Tool, I was pretty impressed. The tool allows you to backup your games through a Steam interface, and what it does beyond a simple copy-paste is this: it compresses the game files, but also allows you to split the compressed files so that they can fit on multiple CDs or DVDs. It also allows for backing up multiple games in one shot, housing them all within the same set of CDs or DVDs. I liked the concept, and so I backed up my Left 4 Dead files to a DVD using this method. To my surprise, when I tried to restore the game afterwards, I encountered this error message: I executed the “steambackup.exe” file … Read more

Becoming a Rainbow Six Operative

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So lately, Joseph and I have been having fun with Rainbow Six Vegas 2. The game is a fairly well-made first-person shooter, and we enjoy playing co-operative games every now and then. The other day, we discovered that the game has a “Custom Head” feature. The feature allows you to map your own face onto your in-game character.  When we actually got around to trying it, we were pretty impressed with the quality of the results. Consider the following screenshot: I kept that “Custom Head” for a while: …and it resulted in a great set of photos.

Measuring Those Pixels

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Ever needed to measure the distance between two HTML elements, without achieving it through code? I found a tool a while ago that allowed me to do just that; it was, essentially, a virtual ruler. Called Pixel Ruler, this free application makes a ruler appear on your screen. You can place it anywhere you want, horizontally or vertically, and use it to measure pretty much anything. It is a little buggy at times, but I still recommend you give it a try.

Dear Santa Claus

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I found this little historical gem at my parents place: Let’s review this quickly: I like how my first question challenges the logic of his whole operation, and the next one aims to strip him of his disguise. Notice how the area under the word “May” in “May I have these toys please?” is scratched? I probably initially wrote “Can”, but then I figured that “May” made more sense. Nice. “Meet me in my room. If I am asleep wake me up.” – I’d like to think this was a trap for this Santa fellow. Maybe I was hidden, waiting to de-mask the man as he attempted to wake me up. This was probably not the case. That “signature” is … Read more

Web-based vs Offline Help Systems

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As you probably know, I work for a software development company –  and during a routine lunch hour, I  began wondering why our software still shipped with offline help files (CHM), rather than offering the help files online. You see, every now and then, our company discovers that the help files are missing some information; however, we can’t do anything about it until the next release. Sure, we can temporarily alleviate the problem by creating external knowledge base articles, but it doesn’t fix the fact that clients have the same help files, without the new information. This situation brought an interesting question to the table: Why don’t our products have web-based help? I came up with numerous advantages and disadvantages: … Read more

Where’s My Cell Phone?

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Last year I decided to get drop my land line, and just get by with a cell phone. All was well, until one day where I wasn’t able to find my cell phone. I somehow managed to lose it in my apartment, and since I no longer had a land line, I couldn’t call my own phone to get it ringing. To locate it, I ended up sending an instant message to a friend on MSN, and he called my phone. That worked well enough, but it required someone else to be around. The next time I lost my phone, again in my apartment –  I couldn’t contact anyone on MSN, so I looked for an alternate solution. I googled around … Read more

The Peculiar Ways Of My Cat

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Last year, I spontaneously adopted a male kitten from a local pet shop. I’d always walked by this pet shop, but was never actively interested in getting a kitten. Having grown up with cats, they weren’t anything new to me – but this particular kitten was different. His fur was blond… I had never seen a cat that color before – the ones I grew up with had been much darker. I was used to black, gray, brown, and mixes based upon those colors. So ultimately, I bought the kitten – and soon realized he was very different from other cats. First off, he isn’t afraid of water – at all. In fact, he has a weird attraction to it. … Read more

Why Vista’s User Account Control Feature Isn’t So Bad

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When I first got around to using my copy of Windows Vista regularly, I quickly became annoyed of one particular feature – User Account Control (UAC). At first, I saw it as an acceptable comprimise for the sake of security… but after a while, it became clear that most the apps I use actually need Administrative access. I found myself forgetting to launch the shortcuts with Administrative privileges, and then I’d have to close the application, and launch it properly by right-clicking and saying “Run as administrator”. I put up with it until, one day, I was checking out the Properties of a shortcut… when I discovered a checkbox I’d never noticed before. Eventually, I grew so frustrated that I … Read more